Carriers for sporting equipment are well known in the industry and are used for transporting pieces of sport equipment to remote locations for use. One such instance is carriers for bicycles that mount upon passenger vehicles. A preferred location for mounting such racks is at the rear of the vehicle where the rack causes minimum distraction and does not obstruct a driver's view. Many vehicles have tailgates that lower and back windows that raise; examples of such vehicles are station wagons, pick-up trucks and many sport utility vehicles. It is also common for such vehicles to have trailer hitch receptacles or receivers located proximate to the bumper structure below these gates. A common configuration for such receivers is a rectangular receptacle intended for a balled assembly to be inserted and fixed therein. It is upon this balled assembly that a trailer may be hitched. When such a balled assembly is not needed, it may be removed in many designs. When removed, the rectangular receiver is vacant and often covered with a removable cap.
Sport rack carrier designers have taken advantage of the presence of such a receiver and designed sports racks to be mounted therein at times when the vehicle is not being used for towing purposes and the receiver is vacant. One particularly popular embodiment in such a rack is in the form of a bicycle carrier.
Such hitch mounted bicycle carriers are known in the industry. One example is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,231 issued to Burgess for an Adjustable Car Carrier on Jun. 25, 1996. In that invention, an upright post is journalled to a horizontal extension to the hitch receiver. Typical carrier systems of known designs incorporate a hinged configuration so that the primary upright structure may be folded downward to facilitate the opening and closing of an adjacently located tailgate. During transport and travel, however, the carrier must be fixed in an upright orientation for proper carriage of the sports equipment resting thereon.
A common means for fixing the upright orientation and preventing outward folding of the upright member is a pinned locking mechanism. This pinned configuration provides a simple means for fixing relative movement between the two pieces of the carrier assembly, but it does not provide a particularly strong connection nor one that is rattle free. Furthermore, it is possible for these pinned connections to be inadvertently disengaged. As a result, the need for an improved system for securing a hinged member of such a hitch mounted rack and preventing its inadvertent disengagement has been recognized as desirable and the present invention has been designed in answer thereto.